Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Charles Cowden Clarke, [October 1828]
[Enfield, October, 1828.]
DEAR Clarke,—We did expect to see you with Victoria and the Novellos before this, and
do not quite understand why we have not. Mrs.
N. and V. [Vincent]
promised us after the York expedition; a day being named before, which
fail’d. ’Tis not too late. The autumn leaves drop gold, and Enfield
is beautifuller—to a common eye—than when you lurked at the Greyhound.
Benedicks are close, but how I so totally missed you
at that time, going for my morning cup of ale duly, is a mystery. ’Twas
stealing a match before one’s face in earnest. But certainly we had not a
dream of your appropinquity. I instantly prepared an Epithala-![]()
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mium, in the form of a Sonata—which I was sending to
Novello to compose—but Mary forbid it me, as too light for the occasion—as if the
subject required anything heavy—so in a tiff with her I sent no congratulation
at all. Tho’ I promise you the wedding was very pleasant news to me
indeed. Let your reply name a day this next week, when you will come as many as
a coach will hold; such a day as we had at Dulwich. My very kindest love and
Mary’s to Victoria and the
Novellos. The enclosed is from a friend nameless, but
highish in office, and a man whose accuracy of statement may be relied on with
implicit confidence. He wants the exposé to appear in a
newspaper as the “greatest piece of legal and Parliamentary villainy
he ever remembd,” and he has had
experience in both; and thinks it would answer afterwards in a cheap pamphlet
printed at Lambeth in 8o sheet, as 16,000 families in
that parish are interested. I know not whether the present Examiner keeps up the
character of exposing abuses, for I scarce see a paper now. If so, you may
ascertain Mr. Hunt of the strictest truth of
the statement, at the peril of my head. But if this won’t do, transmit it
me back, I beg, per coach, or better, bring it with you. Yours unaltered,
Charles Cowden Clarke (1787-1877)
The schoolmate and friend of John Keats; he lectured on Shakespeare and European
literature and published
Recollections of Writers (1878).
Mary Victoria Cowden Clarke [née Novello] (1809-1898)
The daughter of the musician Vincent Novello, she married Charles Cowden Clarke in 1828
and wrote works on Shakespeare, including
The Complete Concordance to
Shakespeare (1845).
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of
The
Examiner and
The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
Mary Sabilla Novello [née Hehl] (1789-1854)
English author who married Vincent Novello in 1808 and had a family of eleven children,
among them Mary Cowden Clarke.
Vincent Novello (1781-1861)
English music publisher and friend of Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
The Examiner. (1808-1881). Founded by John and Leigh Hunt, this weekly paper divided its attention between literary
matters and radical politics; William Hazlitt was among its regular contributors.
